Feeling Better…
Wow, what a difference a week makes. I know I sometimes hold my feelings close to the body, but last week I felt miserable. As one friend suggested, perhaps I just need to accept that I have had enough of the chemo (remember, it’s effects are cumulative) that I’m going to not feel well for a couple of days after subsequent chemo treatments. I’m not sure I am ready to accept that, but the lack of acceptance is likely due to my being stubborn rather than reality.
Chemo notwithstanding, though, I’m not sure why I was not feeling well last Tuesday. As I mentioned, last week, I felt like I had the flu: I was not nauseous, but I was achy and had trouble getting comfortable. My temperature kept fluctuating between being hot and being cold (and my body could not decide which it wanted to be). It was miserable lying in bed and being moved to tears because I just didn’t feel right. Luckily, by Friday evening, I was feeling 100 times better.
Saturday started out rough. You see, I and some fellow Scout leaders, were going to an event called University of Scouting, and we wanted to get there by about 7:30a. Unfortunately, I (apparently) was so stressed about the possibility of sleeping through my alarm that I was wide awake at 3:30a and could not get back to sleep. (I ended up watching some movie on TBS.) I was similarly worried that I would sleep through my brother waking me up for the Thanksgiving Day parade.
I mention this because i had thought (hoped) that I was, perhaps, ready to stop taking Welbutrin (the medicine I take to help with both anxiety and depression). It would seem that I am not quite ready to do so, given that I got so worked up about a parade and scouting event. I cannot understand what I have to be stressed about…HA!
This weekend was, as my friend Debra pointed out, typically busy for me. Saturday was taken up with the scouting event. Sunday our church had its annual Deck the Halls service, in which my family and briefly describe the traditions of Hanukkah. After church, the boys and I went to an orienteering troop event at Stone Mountain (traipsing through the woods — mostly off paths — looking for 1″ PVC pipes stuck in the ground using only bearings, distances, and a compass). I was really proud of my boys (they did a great job), but after 2+ hours of hiking through the woods (did I mention we weren’t using any paths?), I was tuckered. After orienteering, I came home and rested for an hour before having to turn around and head back to church to teach the human sexuality class. So much for taking it easy over the weekend.
I’m looking forward to NOT having chemo this week. There continues to be a lingering concern of mine about how getting chemo every other week (rather than 3 times / month as is typically done) affects the efficacy of the treatment. In the end, though, the reality is that my body cannot take chemo more than every other week, so there’s no use trying to do it more frequently. As I have maintained throughout this journey, I will either remain cancer-free (they say I’m cancer-free right now, because the tests — CT scans and the CA19-9 — have not indicated any evidence of cancer in my body) or it will recur. The Gemzar will either work or it won’t. Meanwhile, I continue to enjoy the “benefits” of pancreas cancer — I don’t seem to gain weight even when I eat poorly (what can I say, there were lots of cookies and holiday goodies after the Deck the Halls service at church).
Well, there you have it; another stream of consciousness blog entry. Talk to you tomorrow…
Merle
I did some geocaching a few years back–I guess it takes all the art out of cross-country navigation when you have a magic box with an arrow that always points to where you want to go…like an orienteering course that only goes (magnetic) North. My favorite map and compass exercise was always to give out a complicated series of bearings and distances that was supposed to land you right back where you started. You could pretty quickly sort a group into the ones that basically got it and the ones that had no clue.